Wichita eagle., 1887-12-13
THE SPEAKERSHIP,
New York World,


Mr.. Carlisle is now entering upon his
thiId term as speaker, and when he has
completed it Kentucky will have had the
speakership twenty-three years. New
York has not had a speaker since the
days of John Quincy Adams, when
John w. Taylor closed his term, and she
has been represented only three years in
the speakers chair since the beginning
of our government Kentucky ranks
the other states of the Union as a fur
nisher of speakers of congress, and Vir-
ginia comes next, with just two-thirds
the period of service, or four
teen years. Pennsylvania has held
the speakership eleven years, Mas
sachusetts ten years, Indiana eight years,
Main, North Carolina and New Jersey
six years, Ohio four years, and Georgia,
when Howell Cobb was speaker, two.
Henry Clay is the only man in our
history who has sat more than eight
years in the speakers chair. He pre-
sided over the house for twelve Years,
and he was elected speaker at the age
of 81 and during his first term i'll the
house Of representatives. He did not
coniine himself to his duties as pre-
siding officer, but took a leading part in
debate on almost all important occasions
1t was his failure to become president
and that of eX-Speaker James G.. Blaine
that has given rise to the
superstition that no speaker of the
house will ever be president of the
United States: and, indeed, considering
that these were the two most popular
men in our political history there seems
to be sort of fatality about it. But
some day an ex-speaker will be led into
the White House and the fatality will go
to the winds.
The first speaker of the house of repre-
sentatives was Frederick A. Muehlen-
berg, a Lutheran preacher of Philadel-
phia, whose statue now stands in statu
AIRY hall in the. Capitol. It is life-size
figure OF white marble, bearing an etfem-
mate face and dressed in knee breeches,
with the legs so adjusted that the whole
looks like an instantaneous photograph
of pedestrian IN action. When Much
lenberg was elected the seat OF govern
ment was in New York. The president,
George Washington, had been taken
from Virginia, and Massachusetts had
been given the presidency i'll John
Adams. The speakership naturally fell
to Pennsylvania. and Muehlenberg. who
had been speaker Of the Pennsylvania
legislature, was chosen. He served two
terms in the speakers chair. presiding
over the First and Third congresses. and
he gave as chairman of the committee OF
the whole the casting vote il favor Of
the law required to carry jays treaty
into effect.
Illinois has never had speaker of the
house or a president of the senate. and
no speaker has ever lived west of the
Mississippi. Rhode Island and Della
ware, among the eastern states, have
never been honored with the speaker
ship. and neither Louisiana nor Alabama
has ever had a speaker.
When Carlisle closes this congress he
will have had as many years in the chair
as had Blaine, Colfax and Nathaniel
Macon, of North Carolina. and between
him and Henry Clay, in point of service,
there viii only stand Andrew Stevenson.
of Virginia, who served eight years as
speaker and whose term closed during
the second administration of Andrew
Jackson. Jackson made him minister to
England, and upon his return he devoted
himself to agriculture and literature,
Cincinnatus-like preferring his farm to
the field of public action.